the tribute demands of the aztecs are recorded here in the "codex mendoza." this page shows the tribute owed by the town of teapequacuilco, denoted by this town glyph. now, each of the tribute obligations is denoted by a picture, so it's very clear what is being required. for instance, five strings of jade beads, because there are five depicted. however, they also use their own numbering system. in the case of these copper axes, they use the symbol, a flag, which stands for 20. and in this case with 5 flags they are demanding 100 copper axes. warrior uniforms and shields in the amounts of 1 each and then amounts of 20 each are demanded. this symbol, a feather, represents 400. now, if they want to modify that, for instance, we have here a colored mantle, and 400 are being demanded. but these are fingers representing one each. so they're not demanding 400 here, but in fact, 402 cotton mantles. 40 jaguar skins, 1,600 bales of raw cotton, 80 bird skins, 1 bin of corn and 1 bin of the grain chia. 8,000 containers of chocolate. the amount a province or a town was a